Conventionally, as an apparatus or a method for calculating features of a cell based on image information, there is, for example, a “cell image analysis apparatus” disclosed in Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-227097). In Patent document 1, it is intended to calculate the total number of cells, the center of the cell nucleus, the cell membrane, and the like as feature amounts based on the microscopic images obtained by capturing images of a plurality of cells. For example, in Patent Document 1, the center of the cell is inferred as follows. First, the boundary between the cell and other substances is emphasized by image processing, and the boundary is detected by performing a binalizing process on the images that have been subjected to the emphasizing process. Thereafter, the feature amount at the coordinates of each point within the boundary is extracted, and a threshold value is set for the extracted feature amount. Next, feature points are extracted based on the set threshold value, and the neighboring points thereof are gathered to extract (a candidate of) the center point.
Here, as related art documents related to the present invention, cited are Patent Document 2 (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-303344) and a Non-Patent Document 1 (M. Kass, A. Witkin and D. Terzopoulos, “Snakes: Active Contour Models,” International Journal of Computer Vision pp. 321-331, 1988.) in addition to Patent Document 1.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-227097    [Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-303344    [Non-Patent Document 1] M. Kass, A. Witkin and D. Terzopoulos, “Snakes: Active Contour Models,” International Journal of Computer Vision, pp. 321-331, 1988.